[puzzle]

Funny that you mention the camera. The Pixel 2 has the same sensor (Sony IMX 362) as a bunch of Motorola phones, like the G5+ and the X4. There is the custom Pixel Visual Core, sure, but that's used only by third-party applications that call the Camera API. Google's Camera app does all the processing on the CPU, presumably with highly tuned Halide code.

[dmitrygr]

There is more to photos than CPU and sensor. There are also lenses and their layout as well as per-device and per-model tuning. This is why even if you side-load google camera app and all the libs it needs unto another phone, even with IMX362 sensor, the photos do not come out as good.